The Municipal Museum of Knives opened its doors on September 6, 2004, thanks to the donation and cession of several collections by various entities, collectors and individuals. Some examples are the APRECU Collection, the Caja Castilla La Mancha Collection, the Jesús Vico Collection, the Cajamurcia Foundation Collection and the Samuel Setian Collection, as well as the collections that have been provided by individuals who have delivered pieces, objects or documents to the Museum.

The Municipal Museum of Knives and Cutting Tools is made day by day and much of the Albacete citizens feel it as their own because there is a piece of their own family history in the form of a knife.

With this exhibition, which shows around 250 pieces, ethnological objects and documents, the Municipal Museum of Knives and Cutting Tools wants to pay a well-deserved tribute to all those entities that have collaborated in the formation of the Museum collections and to those people who make it possible with their contributions, detaching themselves from pieces, objects or documents that had jealously guarded, in many cases as silent testimony of a past of dedication to the knife making world and, in others, as the joyful gift or the intimate memory of a family member or friend. In short, they deposit their feelings.

The origin of the knives and pocket knives of this region dates back to the middle of the nineteenth century as one more derivation of the activities that at that time were developed in the ironworks.

The majority of artisans are concentrated in Taramundi. In 1960, there were 80 workshops in this council. Nowadays, the number is much lower, but, nevertheless, there are still pocket knives and knives of great perfection that are made in the workshops of Abraido, Aguillón, Bres, Cabaniñas, Esquios, Llan, Mousende, Nogueira, Rio do Louro, Veiga de Llan, Vilanova and Pardiñas. In all of them, the visitor could admire the work of the successors of those old blacksmiths.

In Santalla there were excellent craft pocket knives makers; the elders of the council recall one hundred artisans working and several mallets in operation as those of Pumares, Mazo Novo, Valia, Boneiros, Peizais or Caraduje. A few years ago there were still a score of knife makers, but they were disappearing and today there are only a few workshops.

Faithful to the artisanal manufacture transmitted over several generations, the work of the Asturian knife makers in small workshops with tools inherited from their ancestors, such as the tixeiras (scissors), the hammer, the talladeira and the coitelas (cutters), the tufo, the furador or the saw, or with tools built from old models according to the special needs of their work.

In these workshops the work table is placed next to the window to take advantage of the light, the blades are forged in the forge and, in some of these places, the water wheel is even rotated by pedal.

The magic of the knife makers from Santa Cruz de Mudela -they are known as “navajeros”- turns the fruit of this hard craft into an artistic work: they know the secrets of the hardening, the forge, the anvil and the grinding wheel; they continue the tradition and turn it into art with the shape of a pocket knife.

The pocket knife from Santa Cruz is a simple, sober and well-rounded piece. The blade, made of carbon steel, sharpened “as God commands”, is occasionally subjected to magnificent engravings; the refined handle, generally made of antler, is decorated with metallic strips and sequins. The result of all this is an attractive and functional pocket knife.

The acid etching of the blades and their decoration, sometimes with brightly colored enamels, are characteristic of the Santa Cruz de Mudela pocket knives.

The polychrome pictures with bullfighting, flamenco and tourist themes give rise to the so-called “navajas de recuerdo” (souvenirs) , which were made profusely in the second half of the last century and are sold to travelers in all parts of our country.

The gaucho, a legendary rider from the Argentine pampas, Uruguayan and southern Brazil, was able to wield from his origins a very particular knife, useful to his needs and distinctive to show it off. Barely a few decades had passed since its eruption in the history of this section of America, when the gaucho prepared to use an original knife in silver and sometimes ornamented with details in gold. Since then, we refer to the first quarter of the nineteenth century, that countryman who only moved mounted on his horse, would never begin a day of work or party without its corresponding silver knife. Tool or weapon, according to the circumstances, such a noble knife always had to accompany him in his most diverse activities.

The gaucho’s attachment to the silver pieces made each countryman wear one of them. Even in the oldest iconographic records, the various characters portrayed by the travelling chroniclers exhibited the unmistakable brilliance of silver in the knife, in the coins of the “rastra” (the gaucho belt), or in the riding equipment.

Among his affections, the gaucho appreciated equally a horse tamed as he liked, just as the distinctive figure of a “verijero” knife or fitted at the waist. It was impossible to describe this rider without one of these elements; “even the beggar was done on horseback,” the chroniclers will say, and the knife is, above all, an extension of his hand.

We are so familiar with eating utensils – the knife, the fork and the spoon – as with our own hands. But we all know that they have not always been part of our dining table culture. For a long time, until the beginning of the Middle Ages, the fingers were the real utensils to eat, using a spoon as a complement and a “multifunctional” knife. The forks had not yet been introduced into domestic uses.

Cutlery, as we know it today, is made up of a knife, a fork and a spoon. This tricotomy, and the creation of complete series with the same shape and decoration, were developed later, approximately three hundred years ago.

The culture of the dining table demonstrates the enormous importance that was assigned to it culturally and socially. Like all artistic and for daily use objects, the cutlery has also been exposed to the passing of time, and with it to the fashion trends and social modifications.

Various backgrounds tell us about the excellence of the swords made in Toledo since ancient times. Those backgrounds date back to the Roman times, but it was during the Muslim time and in the Christian Reconquest when Toledo and its guilds of swords makers played a major role.

After the Reconquest, Toledo became the world center of the sword making sector thanks to the innovation which led to the creation of the “espada con alma de hierro” (a sword with iron inside in): the best of the swords from the 15^th to the 17^th century. During all this time, the production was in the hands of a large network of swords makers and craftsmen who provided the armies and individuals with weapons.

In the eighteenth century, a new stage began for the Toledan sword, because from then on most swords were forged and tempered in the most important Spanish sword making center: the Royal Sword Factory, that was the first name of the famous Toledo National Factory of Weapons, created by Carlos III, the illustrated king.

The man used copper and bronze for the elaboration of his weapons and utensils until the Iron Age, when he began to use this metal. The Sharpeners (men who sharpen knives and other tools) and sharpening are as old as the use of metals and are necessary to maintain the tools in the best conditions. Currently, in the process of making a cutting instrument, grinding constitutes the final master touch for that inert piece to take its useful life.

The work of the sharpener, who sharpened folding knives, scissors and other agricultural, ranching, domestic or industrial tools, was different from the work of the knife maker. Moreover, the sharpener carried out his job directly with his client, whether he was a neighbour or a stranger from another near or distant country: sharpeners moved hundreds or thousands of kilometers, for a few days or for years.

The process of sharpening, whether it was occasional or regular, happened from time to time throughout the life of a knife. The trade of sharpener had its peak in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and practically disappeared in the twentieth century.

In the sharpening process, the sharpener was as important as the tools used (sharpening wheels). As in many other craft trades, this small mobile workshop was an extension of the sharpener’s hands and the testimony of an intense life history that originated in Galicia. From the North of Orense, the trade of sharpener became a complement for the economy of the rural families. Sometimes, the specialization and the expertise as well as the lack of other resources, determined that these craftsmen were devoted exclusively to this activity. Those master sharpeners departed from the lands of Ourense towards Castile, becoming Gallegos of the roads throughout the peninsular geography.

As a seasonal worker, from town hall to town hall around his native Galicia, or from villa to villa around Castile, the sharpener always returned home, until he had to take advantage of the opportunities that his trade offered beyond the ocean and reach Cuba, Venezuela or Argentina to settle definitively.

The knife making industry of Albacete in the twentieth century begins determined by a late industrial development, with craft practices that will reach well into the middle of the century. Similarly, its first third is characterized by the succession of brief periods of relative expansion followed by others of acute crisis. Thus, until reaching the years of the Second Republic and the later Civil War, a stage lived in a particularly significant way in some factories and workshops, as the shortage of metallurgical industries favoured its reconversion in industries for war.

The stage comprising the forties and fifties was a difficult time due to the scarcity of raw materials and the electrical restrictions. The lack of raw materials was the common denominator of all establishments, due to three factors: difficulties in the transit of goods, shortages after the Civil War and the interception by the military authorities of materials indispensable for the metallurgical industry (iron, tin, lead …) destined now for the war industry after the outbreak of World War II.

The developmental period of the 1960s was equally felt in the knife making industry. By the end of the previous decade, factories and workshops had already witnessed a rebound in their economy of some importance. The factories opened new markets that strengthened in the second half of the sixties – a circumstance favoured by the Fairs of Knife Making- and the workshops, dragged by the good economy of the factories, attended a modernization of its mechanization.

Furthermore, the craft activity began to be residual, since a good part of the components of the knives – the wood – had been supplied, for some time, by some big factories. This circumstance put an end to those artisanal practices of the preceding decades and gave way to a new way of making the pocket knife and the knife.

A very important fact that has occurred in the twentieth century has been the celebration in Albacete of knife making contests. It was in 1926 when, on the occasion of the Fair of September, the City Council decided to undertake an event of this nature for the first time. This call was constituted as the precursor of the different contests that have marked all the century and gained a special relevance in its last quarter, especially from 1981 thanks to the Association of the Knife Making Sector (APRECU).

In the 1970s, the economic crisis also meant a serious dimming of the sector, which also had a faithful reflection in the knife making contests. Precisely, in order to combat this crisis, the knife making sector was mobilized and the knife makers created an association, with the objectives of defining their interests, favouring the development of new markets and defending their products. On June 28, 1977, the Provincial Association of Entrepreneurs of the Knife Making Sector and Liked Sectors (APRECU) was set up for this purpose.

The decade of the eighties began with the entry into force of the Weapons Regulation of 1981 that raised concern in the knife making sector by prohibiting automatic knives. This coincided with the introduction of the first blades from Southeast Asia, a circumstance that will be a constant thereafter. On the other hand, it should be noted that it was also the moment of consolidation of the Campollano industrial park, where most of the knife making factories and the linked companies were installed.

The most recent history of the knife making sector in the twentieth century – the nineties – has been inextricably linked to the history of APRECU: creation of the literary contest “Juan José García Carbonell”, signing of collaboration agreements with the University of Castilla-La Mancha, inauguration of the monument dedicated to the knife makers in the Plaza del Altozano and the start-up of the Foundation for the Development of the Knife Making Sector (FUDECU).

This foundation has had as one of its most significant goals the implementation of two projects that have seen undertaken at the beginning of the 21st century: the Knife Making School “Amos Núñez” and the Municipal Museum of Knives and Cutting Tools.

The sixties of the twentieth century was a crucial moment for the history of the knife making sector in Albacete, since it meant the stage of greater economic development of the sector and, in many cases, the transition from the traditional workshop to the factory. Almost all the important knife firms of that time saw how this transformation happened. However, while new factories were opening, others were disappearing. At the same time, Madrigueras expanded its products with innumerable workshops and reconverted the traditional manufacture of steelyard balances into the knife making.

On the other hand, the consolidation of the provincial fairs related to knife making and its conversion into fairs of national level, in 1966, favoured that development. Those fairs benefited to the own Fair of Albacete that, undoubtedly favoured by those events, acquired the declaration of Fair of National Tourist Interest.

The lens of the camera of the master photographer Jaime Belda witnessed this transformation of the sixties and a good part of those fragments of history remained in its plates. The present exhibition is configured exclusively with those photographs of Belda made almost all of them at that stage. This circumstance, however, has caused that only the workshops and factories portrayed by the photographer whose image has been found in his archives are present in the exhibition. There is no doubt that Belda made many other visits to other different workshops than those contemplated in this exhibition, but that testimony has not yet been recovered.

Under the title “Knives from Albacete, Treasures of three centuries”, the Municipal Museum of Knives offered a temporary exhibition that showed knives, poniards,  daggers and push daggers date from the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries, made by artisans from Albacete. All of them are real treasures that were ceded by different collectors.

This exhibition was possible thanks to the contribution of the small and yet so great treasures of these passionate people –Albacete’s knives lovers – who have dedicated and dedicate much of their lives to the search for that unique knife so essential in their always incomplete collections. Thanks to them, the push daggers, daggers, poniards and knives that were gathered in the temporary exhibition halls of the Municipal Museum of Knives – after decades and even centuries outside their place of origin – returned to the city where they were forged and created by craftsmen from Albacete. All these works could leave for a while the drawers and showcases, so that once again the richness of their blades and handles could be object of admiration, as they were centuries ago, in some shelf or window of a knife making workshop in Albacete.

On the other hand, for the first time, this exhibition counted on the invaluable collaboration of the National Archaeological Museum (Madrid) and the Museum of Albacete. Both institutions lent various Albacete knives of great relevance.

The first news about the Albacete’s knife making dates back to the 16^th century. In the seventeenth century we find 64 knife making artisans – according to researcher Rafael Martínez del Peral – in a population of less than 5,000 inhabitants.
In the eighteenth century, although the documentary references indicate that the knife making activity does not seem to be still prominent in the city, the pieces that have survived to this day show that this activity was important.

Moreover, Albacete is already recognized abroad as one of the most outstanding knife making populations in Spain with at least 80 knife making artisans at the moment working in the city, concentrated in the streets called “Zapateros”, “San Agustín” or “Feria”.

In the nineteenth century Albacete is going to be known, without any doubt, as an eminently knife making population. In this century the production remains entirely artisan and, it was not until the twentieth century, when the industrial process is developed completely influenced by the French and German knife making industries.